Yeltsin Apologizes to Japan for Abuse of WWII Prisoners : Diplomacy: The visiting Russian president also agrees that dispute over islands must be resolved.

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, moving to heal a valued neighbor’s historic wounds, apologized Tuesday for the cruel treatment and deaths of Japanese prisoners in his country after World War II and agreed that a dispute over four small islands Moscow seized from Japan must be resolved.

Somber and contrite, Yeltsin made both gestures during his first official visit to Japan, aiming to dispel the ill will that has poisoned the two Pacific powers’ relations for a century and to unlock Japanese aid for Russia’s free-market reforms.

Yeltsin ended two days of talks with Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa today with a sheaf of agreements outlining how to spend $4.6 billion in Japanese aid already pledged to Russia. Although no new money was offered, both leaders called the visit a step toward reconciliation.

“As we say, it is not by bread alone,” Yeltsin said after the signing ceremony. “We discussed establishing a new psychological climate. The most important thing is achieving a spirit of partnership and friendship.”

Hosokawa added: “We managed to make a pretty good start.”

Yeltsin’s spontaneous atonement was the dramatic high point.

“On behalf of the Russian people and the government, I would like to express my apology for these inhumane acts,” he told Hosokawa, referring to the detention of more than 600,000 Japanese civilian and military war prisoners in Soviet labor camps for years after Japan’s surrender in 1945. In a separate audience with Emperor Akihito, Yeltsin offered “deep condolences for the many Japanese who died in Russia.”

Veterans groups welcomed Yeltsin’s words, but some renewed the call for reparations for the prisoners and their survivors.

“He said their action was bad, didn’t he? That means they’re guilty,” said Gosuke Uchimura, a former prisoner who later taught Russian literature in Japan. “So they have to compensate by being punished.”

Japan and the Soviet Union closed the door on reparations in a 1956 declaration. They acknowledged the deaths of 3,957 prisoners, though historians believe as many as 60,000 may have died.

Yeltsin’s apology went further than the expression of “condolence” four years ago by Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the only Soviet leader to visit Japan. Yeltsin, who helped overthrow the Soviet system, blamed the prisoners’ treatment on “a totalitarian regime that claimed millions of lives in Russia.”

Hosokawa, who has gone further than any previous Japanese leader in admitting the suffering caused by Japan’s wartime aggression, praised Yeltsin’s statement as a “foundation for the spiritual and psychological reconciliation of our two peoples.”

While Yeltsin’s apology was unsolicited, his new position on the four Russian-occupied islands, seized by the Soviet army right after World War II, was the product of difficult negotiations. On the eve of the visit, the Russian leader said he hoped the issue would not even come up.

But winding up talks with Hosokawa, Yeltsin went on record as admitting the existence of a dispute over the Pacific islands--known in Russia as the South Kurils and in Japan as the Northern Territories--and pledging to rid them of all 7,000 remaining Russian troops.

Japanese officials said they pressed Yeltsin to acknowledge Tokyo’s sovereignty over all four islands.

But a communique signed by both leaders said only that they “have undertaken serious negotiations on the issue of where (the four islands) belong.” It said a settlement should be based on “law and justice” as well as on “historical facts” and past agreements.

On that score, Yeltsin promised publicly to honor all Soviet agreements with Japan. Hosokawa said that means Russia recognizes a 1956 bilateral pact that promised two islands--Shikotan and the Habomai group--to Japan.

Pressed by reporters to confirm that interpretation, Yeltsin showed irritation. “Let us agree we will not raise the territorial question,” he told them.

“Why? This is enough.”

The dispute, which has kept the two countries from agreeing formally to end World War II, reportedly occupied half the time the two leaders spent talking. The Japanese made it clear from the start that Russia can expect no new pledge of significant aid until it renounces its claims to the islands.

As a result, the Russian delegation spent much of its effort here exhorting Japanese business leaders to carry out investment projects in Russia.

In a speech to industrialists Tuesday, Yeltsin alternately berated and humored them with appeals to help develop Russia’s Far East. He got a cool reception. The business leaders said they were put off less by the territorial dispute than by the chaos of Russia’s transition from communism to capitalism.

Yeltsin said last week’s bloody suppression of an armed revolt by foes of free-market reform had cleared the way for better tax incentives and legal guarantees for foreign investors.

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